


the boy with the thorn in his side

by nothingbutfic



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 21:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4976461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingbutfic/pseuds/nothingbutfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur has some questions. Gaius has some answers. They don't always match up. A ficlet set in early Season 1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the boy with the thorn in his side

Arthur strode purposefully down the passageway, cloak billowing behind him. Guards nodded to him as he passed, and he nodded in return, casting an eye over each and every one in a way so practiced as to be barely conscious. But what his eye saw, it remembered, mind absently noting down each infraction- the slight slouch of one guard, the dirty boots of another. Humiliation had its time and place, but now was not the time nor the place. 

Later, he would take the captain of the guard aside for a quiet word, remind him calmly of the standards to which they all aspired, and tell him off with a pointed index finger and a tone that was just warm enough not to inspire dread or fear or resentment. 

Later. Another task, another role, another wheel to turn in the machine that was Camelot.

It was only when Arthur stopped in front of Gaius' door that he realised a gloved hand was resting on the pommel of his sword, elbow pushing the cloak out of the way. Posed like he was at a triumph - or ready for battle. He wasn't entirely sure which would be worse, and took a deep breath before he knocked at the door and started inside. The knock had been an announcement, not a request.

Princes didn't need permission to wander through their own castles, simple politeness aside.

He was already coming through the frame when Gaius called out a querulous "Hallo?" which quickly changed to a far more deferent "Prince Arthur," complete with nod. The man tried to stand, and Arthur waved it away with a "Don't trouble yourself, Gaius," taking off his gloves and stacking them in one hand. He knew the cold nights made Gaius' old joints creak, and he would have no man suffer due to protocol.

Well. Perhaps one man. The insolent boy with the smart, pretty mouth. Arthur could see _him_ suffer for a very long time.

"To what do I owe the honour, my Prince?" Gaius asked, in a tone that was far too bland to be entirely trustworthy. Arthur merely regarded him coolly with nary a raised eyebrow, and looked around his quarters. Better to let him stew a little, he thought.

Gaius' chambers were airy, and the collection of salts and powders, unguents and essences gave it an acerbic, sterile air. It always made his nostrils flare a little when he came here, and make him feel like he was surrounded by things he didn't quite understand. So he had put it out of his mind and didn't visit himself often.

He found himself sniffing the air, and then realised what was missing - the scent of sweat and grass, the scents that were always on him after a good practice session, drowned out now by ammonia and something sourer. He felt less _himself_ here, and it unsettled him a little.

Arthur found Gaius looking at him, so he looked at him back. _Make the old buzzard uncomfortable_ , he thought, ungenerously. Courtesy only went so far. "Oh. Right. Training. I pulled a muscle in my leg. I thought you could make up some sort of ointment."

Gaius accepted it at face value, because that was what anyone with brains did with princes, and got off his stool to shuffle around to find vials and bottles and powders, asking Arthur questions in order to determine the correct ingredient.

"Where exactly was the pain?"

"Right calf."

"What form did it take?"

"A pulling sensation in the muscle, sharp and then radiating heat all the way through the lower leg," Arthur responded dutifully. It had happened to him three months ago and he could still remember the symptoms with a rather ghastly specificity. Much like the last time he'd been shot with an arrow, or dislodged a shoulder. His body was a map of pains long past, etched out in scar tissue.

"What did you do then?"

Arthur stared at the man's back, his mouth curling into a brief moue of disgust. "I hobbled off the field and rested it, of course."

"Any treatment?"

"Merlin gave me a massage and applied a cold towel."

"Hmm. Very wise."

"But it now feels sort of cramped, so I figured I should come to you."

"You don't look like you're suffering from a cramped muscle," Gaius observed, looking back over his shoulder. "Standing there all ramrod straight."

"Gaius...what possible reason do you think I have to lie to you? Do you think I'd maintain this stupid charade just so I could poke around _this_ place?" But he knew even as he finished saying it, his exasperation probably gave him away. That and the peering through the little doorway into what he knew was Merlin's room. If you could even call it a room. More like hovel, really. Heap.

"....Of course not, your Highness." There was perhaps a trace of amusement on Gaius' lips as he turned around.

Gaius strode back to the table and placed a wide variety of his stores there, popping a pinch of something or a dash of that or a drop of this into a bowl. "How is Merlin doing?"

"Merlin?"

"Yes, Merlin. My assistant, your servant.”

“He’s not _completely_ incompetent,” Arthur conceded, although he wasn’t strictly pleased to do so. “I do have to admit he has an incredible work ethic. Some of the time.”

“He can be a very hard worker,” Gaius agreed.

“The first day I gave him a list of tasks that would normally take _three men_ a _week_ to do, and he did it all in one night. But most days, he’s nothing more than wool-gathering and prattle.”

“He's been in your service for how long now? There might just need to be a period of adjustment.”

"Four months. Four months, three weeks and two days. Besides, Gaius, a prince does not _adjust_ to a peasant. It’s the other way around.”

“Not that you’ve been counting, I see,” Gaius observed, not quite tartly enough to deserve more than a slightly indignant expression.

“Well, what would you expect? He comes into Camelot, no idea what he’s doing - does he have any concept of how to be a servant?”

“I suppose you haven’t asked him,” Gaius remarked, tart enough to serve as both warning and rebuke. Arthur glanced over, because honestly, that sort of tone was not exactly welcome - although Gaius did have certain privileges with the King that Arthur didn't entirely understand. And when Arthur bothered to enquire, his father would dismiss his questions with the wave of a hand and a weary ' _You'll understand when you're older_.'

Except Arthur _was_ older, and there was still too much in the castle he did not yet understand. From what he had gathered, Gaius had assisted in Arthur's birth, so Arthur simply assumed it was his father's general sensitivity when it came to matters relating to that difficult time. And while he supposed the old physician was due a certain latitude from Uther, as father if not King, it was another matter for _him_ to offer it. 

"I don't tend to ask servants about their personal lives, no." Arthur barely managed to restrain his eye rolling. Ask about a _servant_? Might as well invite gossip. To say nothing of disrupting the careful hierarchy amongst the servants. Merlin may find himself above such things, but Arthur had already had to warn one of the chamber maids and a boy in the stables for suggesting Merlin was so _stupid_ his only position could be in the brothel in the lower town. People had trained for years to work their way into the royal household, and did not take kindly to an unschooled _idiot_ who barely knew his letters winging his way into becoming the personal manservant of his highness Prince Arthur. He could only stamp out the symptoms of an unchecked and frankly ugly jealousy; the cause remained.

Arthur's curiosity was unsatisfied, however, and Arthur didn't deal particularly well with a lack of satisfaction. "Come on, Gaius, tell me what you think I should know."

Gaius cleared his throat, and gave him a curious look. Arthur could have sworn he was deciding what to tell him about Merlin, as if that bumbling kind-hearted dolt had any secrets worth keeping. Maybe it was something to do with the boy's family, who had gone unmentioned. "I'll tell you what I know, but it won't be the _Vita Merlini_ ," Gaius opined, and Arthur rather singularly failed to crack a smile at the joke.

“But no, your Highness, Merlin was not trained to be a servant," Gaius continued smoothly, returning to the matter at hand. "He was not from Camelot, or any of the surrounding villages.”

Arthur paused then for a second, assimilating the information, and considered how some of his assumptions may have been…a little askew. “Where is he from then?”

“Oh, just another flyspeck village that’s barely marked on any map,” Gaius told him, almost chortling at the prince’s ignorance.

“Sounds like half the kingdom,” Arthur shot back, and was rewarded with a glare.

“Merlin was born in one of the villages that lies past the rise of Badon Hill. His mother sent him to me. There wasn’t much left for him in the village.”

To Gaius’ clear surprise, Arthur nodded, his gaze even, as much as the admission came a bit awkwardly “Technically that land is in Cenred’s kingdom, but neither he…nor we…take as much care as we should. I have heard stories of bandits, burning the fields, carrying off the women, killing the men. There’s only so long you can hide in a forest,” he observed.

“It’s true,” Gaius agreed, and Arthur appreciated the slight respect in the physician's eyes. “The villages that lie along both sides of the border have essentially been abandoned. It’s a No Man’s Land, Arthur.”

“The King says we need to hold the castle,” Arthur told him stiffly, and only brought his eyes up to meet Gaius’ to say: “And so we hold.” It did not sound like it was a duty he had much love for.

“Your father has always been strong in times of war,” Gaius said blandly.

“Yes, he has,” Arthur agreed absently, and looked over the crowded table as Gaius continued to busy himself with pots and potions. There was perhaps the ghost of a question in his agreement, a shared wonder at how well Uther dealt with times of peace.

He reached out to touch a small pottery distillery with a gloved hand, and barely managed to stop it from falling over, clearing his throat. Gaius just looked at him.

“So, then, Merlin was sent to Camelot for protection?”

“And for a craft, something to do. Besides, there’s always too many mouths to feed in most villages,” Gaius observed.

“But he’s not your apprentice,” Arthur pointed out sharply, like he’d won something. Merlin didn't quite fit, not in Arthur's life or Gaius'. There wasn't a properly observed place for him.

“Just because he’s not formally apprenticed to me doesn’t mean he’s not capable,” Gaius told Arthur, holding a vial of something up to the light, and squeezing out a drop into a small glass jar he was using. “I think you’ll find Merlin’s talents lie beyond the strictly medical, however.”

“I’m yet to find them,” Arthur grumbled. “All he does is use that sour mouth of his to _spite_ me.”

“You mean he talks to you like you’re a person, not a Prince,” Gaius suggested.

“Yes!” Arthur burst out, tone exclaiming that he remained confused as to why anyone would not see this as a problem. “And he stands there and _says_ things, and most of it’s babble, but sometimes-“ he slapped his gloves in the palm of one hand, and drew in a deep, frustrated breath. “He’s going to be one of my people, one day,” he said, changing the subject. “I have to care for even the most doltish. And if he grew up in the borderlands….he probably nearly _starved_ twice. Ran from raiders. Knew nothing of a King or his Justice.”

Arthur’s voice did not soften as he continued to talk, but there was a wistful quality alongside the firmness of his tone, asking for Gaius’ understanding even as he recounted the simple, stubborn existence left to many of his future subjects. “There are many people across this island, like Merlin, who still strive, even when we give them no hope. Who return after the fields have been burned, and replant. Who mend broken homes and splint broken bones. I sometimes wonder what the people of Camelot would be capable of if we gave them a little hope. Strength is not enough to live on,” he murmured, knowing it wasn’t quite treason.

“Maybe it’s not your task to give them hope, your Highness,” Gaius mused. “Maybe it’s their task to give you hope. Maybe it’s reciprocal. Or just maybe everyone does it because we all deserve a little hope.” He popped a stopper on the glass jar, and shook it for ten seconds, before handing it over. 

Arthur held the jar up to the light, eyeing the charcoal, thick paste, almost like mud with flecks of a deeper inky, purple. “You’re sure this will fix it?”

“Oh yes. Apply it every night for three days to the site of the cramp. You will feel a burning sensation at first, but then the skin will cool. Cover the affected part with a bandage so you don’t get it all over the bedsheets.”

Arthur’s lips curved into a smirk, and he tucked his gloves into his belt, curling his hand around the little jar. “I think I’ll get Merlin to apply it before I turn in to bed. Thank you, Gaius.” And without another word he strode out of Gaius’ chambers.

“Get Merlin to apply it?” Gaius asked the ceiling. “Yes, I rather thought you might.”


End file.
